The Faculty of Civil Engineering for Universiti Teknologi MARA Malaysia was established in 1967. It started by providing courses in Civil Engineering at the Diploma level for Institiut Teknologi MARA. Students who have completed the Diploma were given options to continue their studies to obtain a Higher National Diploma.

When ITM is granted a full university status, all diplomas issued by ITM have been upgraded to an undergraduate degree. The faculty starts offering undergraduate and post-graduate courses in (year).

SOE was established in early 1967 when Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Arshad Ayub was then the Principal of MARA College. In the middle of 1967, a memorandum for the establishment of SOE was submitted to the British Government for financial & technical aid for the establishment of SOE. Proposed Program of Studies In SOE: Admission Qualifications-5 credits in MCE examination. Students were prepared to sit for University Of London A-Level and O Level examinations. Students with minimum 2 A-Level & 3 O-Level passes will proceed to a 3-year Advance Diploma in Engineering (in Civil, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering). and O Level examinations. Students with minimum 2 A-Level & 3 O-Level passes will proceed to a 3-year Advance Diploma in Engineering (in Civil, Electrical or Mechanical Engineering).In Oct. 1967 MARA College became MARA Institute Of Technology.

First-Intake of 12 students for the 2-year A-Level program in June 1968.

In the year 1969 the Oversea Development Aid of U.K. assigned the Head of the civil engineering department, Head of the mechanical department and the Head of the electrical department from Brighten College of Technology to ITM for four weeks to assist & advise SOE in the curriculum & facilities planning.

The British Government approved £ 1 million allocations for the purchase of British made equipment to SOE. Purchase of British made equipment began. In June 1970, the first batch of A-Level students passes were sent to Australia to continue their studies, as the facilities in the SOE were not ready.

In early 1971, Oversea Development Aid Department Of U.K. assigned three experienced engineering lecturers in civil eng., electrical eng. and electronics eng. to ITM in early to assist in the running of the engineering program.

In July 1971, SOE began to conduct Advance Diploma courses in civil eng., mechanical eng and electrical eng courses with the help of volunteers from Australia, New Zealand and Canada together with the three British advisers and part-timers. Lectures were conducted in ITM campus in Shah Alam but all practical works were carried out in the laboratories of the University of Malaya. At the same time, SOE also started to conduct the Diploma Course in Land Surveying.

Similar type of arrangement as 1971 was carried out throughout in 1972 for the engineering Advance Diploma courses and the Land Surveying Diploma course.

With the completion of the SOE building and laboratories plus the arrival of all the equipment from U.K, the SOE started to conduct all their lectures and practical laboratory works in the new building. In 1973, the ASIA FOUNDATION sponsor the Ex- President of Ohio University to help and advise the Head of SOE in running the school.

SOE together with the schools adopted the U.S. grading system (GPA and CGPA) 
As most of the expatriate staffs services will be ending soon, SOE began to recruit engineering teaching staff from India, Ceylon, Pakistan, etc.

In 1974, SOE introduced the two – tiers system replacing the existing system of 2Years A-Level followed 3 Years Advance Diploma program. In two –tiers program, the students have to complete 3 Years Diploma Course with good grade; only then they will be allowed to carry on with the Advance Diploma Course for another two more years.

BEM and IEM accepted all Advance Diploma holders from SOE as Graduate Engineers, similarly JPA recognize all Advance Diploma holders as Division 1 Government officers and Diploma Holders as Division2 Government officers.

BEM and IEM accepted all Advance Diploma holders from SOE as Graduate Engineers, similarly JPA recognize all Advance Diploma holders as Division 1 Government officers and Diploma Holders as Division2 Government officers.

In the next 10 years (1975 – 1985), the school began to employ Malaysian engineers as the academic staff to replace the lectures from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and sri Lanka. Most of these engineers were trained overseas and many were also alumni of ITM, recruited from the ITM Young Lecturer’s Scheme. The school progressed and was widely accepted by local engineers as the main organizer of short courses, sminars and conferences. Activities for life long learning were mainly conducted by experienced speakers from overseas who were brought in to conduct seminars, conferences and workshop.

Developing further, in the following 10 years (1985 – 1995) the School of Engineering conducted numerous consultation and research works when the Bureau of Research and Consultancy was set up in the institution. This era also showed that professional involvement from the academic staff increased tremendously: be it as adviser or consultants to projects, or voluntary services to professional bodies. The School’s activity of organizing seminars and conferences has now grown into an international level, when in 1989 the Regional Conference on Concrete Engineering and Technology was held in Kuala Lumpur.

In the last 10 years (1995 – 2005) there have been tremendous development for faculty where Diploma programmes were offered in five other branch campuses namely Perlis, Pahang, Sarawak, Sabah and Penang. This was to meet the demand in job market as well as the university’s strategic planning to increase the number of semi professional bumiputras. At present, the good diploma graduates gained admission into the bachelor degree programme and admission has very been competitive as many applications to the programme have been received. To date the Bachelor degree programme is also conducted at the Penang campus. Initially this was to cater for for matriculation and STPM school leavers. It was also aligned with the four year duration required by the BEM in the conduct of any Bachelor of Engineering degree programme in Malaysia. At present, the Shah Alam campus is phasing out the diploma programme and will be concentrating on the bachelor’s and postgraduate degree programmes. Currently, there are 4,000 students enrolled in UiTM. The total no of academic staff has reached more than 150, serving Shah Alam, Penang, Perlis, Pahang, Sarawak and Sabah campuses. The number of courses offered has increased and is mentioned in the following section.

The Faculty progressed and has international connections in every aspect of academic matters, particularly in the exchange of academic staff and posy graduate students. This has started with the University Stuttgart and has now moved towards collaborations with Aalborg University Denmark, Chungnam National University and KAIST Korea, Nagaoka University of Technology Japan and Institute Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Indonesia.

The PhD programme in Civil Engineering is by research (EC 990) and has been offered, there are two admissions per year, which are in June and November.

At present the Faculty of Civil Engineering consists of four Centres of Study, namely ; Structural Engineering and Computing ; Geotechnical, Transportation and Surveying ; Water Resources and Environmental Systems : and Construction Engineering and Project Management. The specialization in the diploma and master levels evolve from these centres of study. The Centres have also witnessed a tremendous in the number of post graduates at both Master and PhD levels.